What’s cooking this week?
Sourdough sandwich bread
Tart cherry granola
Pistachio pesto
Focaccia for the park!
For our third week on S. Portland we’re bringing back some of our favorites, plus slices of focaccia, pizza style, with tomato sauce and roasted garlic to snack on in the park! We’ll also be out a bit earlier, from 12 to 3.
How to order
Place your order by responding to this email or messaging us on Instagram. Each item is $8, except for focaccia, which is $5 a slice.
Once you’re confirmed, pick up your goodies in Fort Greene from 12-3 pm on Saturday! We accept cash or Venmo at pick up.
***The deadline for ordering bread is 8pm Thursday for Saturday pick up. There will be limited quantities of everything available first come first served at our table on S. Portland, but order ahead to make sure you get what you’d like!***
Maria sketches our noodle collection
Kitchen report
A scene from the Cookout household: It’s the end of a long week and we’re exhausted. Our kitchen, at the beginning of the week a bounty of fresh produce and a fully stocked pantry, has somehow, yet again, been depleted to wilting things, unusual grains, back-of-the-fridge items that should (must!) get thrown out but have settled in, are paying rent, feel as if they belong now. What to eat? We must eat something! Delivery? (“No, no,” I insist.) Enter: pantry pasta.
One of the simple joys of my life is discussing dinner plans. It begins at breakfast, cued by the presence of food. Or perhaps for me it began in the middle of the night when an idea crept into my brain and I’ve been awake for hours planning, studying histories, finding specialty shops. But come Friday the ideas have run dry along with the kitchen stock. The dinner conversation is looming, anxiety mounting as hours pass. Inevitably, “pasta” is uttered, as in “let’s just do pasta.” It’s not necessary to say “bolognese” or “pesto” because we know we don't have the ingredients for anything that qualifies as a recognizable dish.
But what we do have is the desire to feel the comfort and instant gratification that the “pasta” concept provides. And with that, ingenuity. The wheels begin to turn. We have andouille sausage--slice that into dimes and brown in lots of butter (we do always have lots of butter). Sauté the half an onion that’s been in the fridge all week in the spicy butter fat, add maybe a whole head of smashed garlic, deglaze with a splash of old white wine (which is now vinegar). Toss in the pasta (Orecchiette? Linguine? Boxed macaroni?) along with a good bit of pasta water. Finish with a handful of cheese. Parm, yes. But also gruyere. Or those mini balls of mozzarella. Okay, and maybe a glug of olive oil.
Pantry pasta is the kind of cooking I love most. It is both intuitive and motivated by a desire to eat something that feels good to you. This means different things to different people. The only right way to cook pantry pasta is your way (the wrong way is to follow a recipe, a convention, a tradition). I encourage everyone to make the pasta of their dreams tonight without a trip to the store.
What would you come up with from the ingredients you have on hand? Can you remember any special improvised dinners? I’d love to hear about them! Email me, or stop by our table in Fort Greene on Saturday and let’s talk pasta. See you then.
Happy cooking,
Bryan
What’s Cookout?
Cookout is tasty food made in our home kitchen to add to your home cooking. Each week, we offer a few unique things we’re excited to be cooking right now, and a few staples we always keep on hand around our kitchen.